t part,
the moment when passion was at its greatest height, or suffering
appeared in its most excruciating form. The general character,
accordingly, of the school, is the expression of passion or violent
suffering; and in the prosecution of this object, they have endeavoured
to exhibit it under all its aspects, and display all the effects which
it could possibly produce on the human form, by the different figures
which they have introduced. While this is the general character of the
whole, there are of course numerous exceptions; and many of its greatest
painters seem, in the representation of single figures, or in the
composition of smaller groups, to have had in view the expression of
less turbulent affections; to have aimed at the display of settled
emotion, or permanent feeling, and to have excluded every thing from
their composition which was not in unison with this predominant
expression.

The _Sculpture Gallery_, which contains 220 remains of ancient statuary,
marks, in the most decided manner, the different objects to which this
noble art was applied in ancient times. Unlike the paintings of modern
Europe, their figures are almost uniformly at rest; they exclude passion
or violent suffering from their design; and the moment which they select
is not that in which a particular or transient emotion may be
displayed, but in which the settled character of mind may be expressed.
With the two exceptions of the Laocoon and the Fighting Gladiator, there
are none of the statues in the Louvre which are not the representation
of the human figure in a state of repose; and the expression which the
finest possess, is invariably that permanent expression which has
resulted from the habitual frame and character of mind. Their figures
seem to belong to a higher class of beings than that in which we are
placed; they indicate a state in which passion, anxiety, and emotion are
no more; and where the unruffled repose of mind has moulded the features
into the perfect expression of the mental character. Even the
countenance of the Venus de Medicis, the most beautiful which it has
ever entered into the mind of man to conceive, and of which no copy
gives the slightest idea, bears no trace of emotion, and none of the
marks of human feeling; it is the settled expression of celestial
beauty, and even the smile on her lip is not the fleeting smile of
temporary joy, but the lasting expression of that heavenly feeling which
sees in all around